Is the Future Independent of Fossil Fuels Here?
On July 18, 2023, American company Fervo Energy announced a breakthrough in geothermal technology.
Specifically, Fervo Energy conducted a 30-day test at their facility in northern Nevada, USA, where they drilled deep wells and pumped water into them at a temperature of 191 degrees Celsius. The water heats up from the Earth’s heat, and then Fervo Energy extracts the water back to the surface, where a turbine converts that heat into electricity.
Fervo Energy stated that the process of this Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS) can achieve “a flow rate of 63 liters per second at high temperatures, allowing for the production of 3.5 megawatts of electricity.” One megawatt can power approximately 750 households at once. With 3.5 megawatts, this number increases to 2,625 homes.
Following this breakthrough success, Fervo Energy plans to connect their Project Red site to the grid in the USA within 2023.
Fervo Energy’s comprehensive commercial pilot project, Project Red, in northern Nevada. (Image: Fervo Energy).
“This is a significant milestone in the development of enhanced geothermal systems. This is the first application of advanced drilling and fracturing techniques developed during the shale oil boom for geothermal energy, and it has demonstrated that they can be used to create artificial geothermal reservoirs with high flow rates,” said Wilson Ricks, a laboratory expert at Princeton University, in an interview with CNBC.
Building on this success, Fervo Energy has begun construction on a 400-megawatt project expected to be operational by 2028, which will provide power to approximately 300,000 homes.
“The successful commercial testing by Fervo Energy brings next-generation geothermal technology from the modeling domain into the real world and begins our journey to explore the full potential of geothermal energy,” stated Jesse Jenkins, a large-scale energy systems engineer and professor at Princeton University.
Currently, most geothermal energy sources are located near tectonic plate boundaries where magma comes close to the Earth’s surface, heating trapped water nearby. In the USA today, geothermal energy only accounts for 0.4% of the total electricity supply.
According to scientists, for a natural geothermal system to produce electricity, it requires a combination of heat, fluid, and rock permeability. In many areas, the rock has the necessary temperature but lacks sufficient permeability for the fluid to flow through it.
An EGS artificially creates this permeability by drilling deep underground and pumping fluid to create fractures in the rock. This approach can significantly increase the number of potential sites for a geothermal power plant.
Fervo Energy achieves a significant milestone in utilizing oil drilling technology to harness geothermal energy. (Image: Fervo Energy).
Instead of relying on natural conditions, Fervo Energy is using drilling technology developed by the oil and gas industry, utilizing hydraulic fracturing techniques to create reservoirs in deep hot rock underground.
“By applying drilling technology from the oil and gas sector, we have demonstrated that we can produce carbon-free energy continuously 24/7 in new geographical areas around the world,” said Tim Latimer, CEO of Fervo Energy.
The US Department of Energy has also launched what they call the “Enhanced Geothermal Shot” – an initiative aimed at reducing the costs of enhanced geothermal energy by 90% to $45 per megawatt-hour by 2035.
The Department of Energy stated that they hope to enhance geothermal systems capable of providing clean energy for 65 million households in the USA.
Fervo Energy & Google: Towards a Carbon-Free Future
Google has taken the lead in committing to operate on carbon-free energy 24/7 by 2030. “Addressing climate change is the next significant step for humanity,” asserted Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
One of the main advantages of geothermal power plants is that they are completely carbon-free – which is why Google signed an agreement with Fervo Energy in 2021 to aim for powering all of Google’s offices and data centers continuously 24/7 with carbon-free energy by 2030.
To achieve this goal, Google has had to purchase a significant amount of renewable energy to support all its energy-intensive computing processes. Unlike wind and solar energy, which are intermittent, geothermal energy is a “always-on” carbon-free resource that can reduce humanity’s hourly dependence on fossil fuels, said Michael Terrell, Senior Director of Energy and Climate at Google.
Simulation image of geothermal technology. The heat from within the Earth can provide carbon-free electricity for humanity. (Image: Internet)
“This is the first time an energy company has demonstrated that Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) can operate at a commercial scale. It has been a long journey to achieve this breakthrough, as scientists have been trying to make EGS a reality since the 1970s,” noted Bloomberg.
Michael Terrell further stated: “To achieve the goal of operating 24/7 on carbon-free energy will require new clean energy sources to complement the diverse renewable energy resources like wind and solar. We partnered with Fervo Energy in 2021 because we saw significant potential in their geothermal technology to unlock vital carbon-free energy 24/7 at scale, and we are excited to see Fervo Energy reach this important technology milestone.”
As part of the partnership, Google is developing artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) systems to improve Fervo Energy’s efficiency, while Fervo Energy is adding clean energy to the power grid in Nevada, where Google is a major customer of clean energy.
